John spoke loudly and angrily, and at the sound the door of the vault was pushed open, showing the form of a man-at-arms about to enter, followed by several others. But the king waved them back with his hand, and turning to Arthur, he proceeded:--"Hearken to me, nephew! The way to free yourself, and to return to the bright world from which you are now cut off, is free and open before you."[[23]]
Arthur raised his head.
"Renounce your claim to kingdoms you shall never possess, and cast from you expectations you can never realise, and you shall be free to-morrow. I will restore to you your duchy of Brittany; I will give you a portion befitting a Plantagenet; and I will treat you kindly as my brother's son. What would you more? You shall have the friendship and protection of the King of England."
"I would rather have the enmity of the King of France," cried Arthur, starting up, as the long catalogue of all John's base perfidies rushed across his mind, coupled with the offer of his friendship--"I would rather have the enmity of the King of France! There is always some resource in the generosity of a true knight."
"Thou art a fool, stubborn boy!" cried John, his eye flashing and his lip curling at his nephew's bold reply--"thou art a stubborn fool! Are not the kings of France the hereditary enemies of our race?"
"Philip of France is my godfather in chivalry," replied Arthur, drawing somewhat nearer to De Coucy, as if for protection from the wrath that was gathering on his uncles brow, "and I would rather place my confidence in him, than in one who wronged my uncle Richard, who wronged my father Geoffrey, and who has broken his word even in respect to me, by thrusting me into a prison, when he promised his barons, as they themselves have told me, to leave me at liberty and to treat me well. He that breaks his word is no good knight, and I tell thee, John of Anjou, thou art false and foresworn!"
John lost his habitual command over his countenance in the excess of his wrath; and his features seemed actually to change under the vehemence of his passion. He set his teeth; he clenched his left hand, as if he would have buried his finger-nails in the palm; and, thrusting his right under his crimson mantle, he evidently drew some weapon from its sheath. But at that moment, De Coucy, taking one stride in advance, opposed himself between the king and his nephew, and with his head thrown back, and his broad chest displayed, prepared at all risks to seize the tyrant, and dash him to atoms if he offered any violence to the unhappy youth that fortune had cast into his power.
John, however, possessed not the heart, even had he been armed in proof, to encounter a knight like De Coucy, though unarmed; and, sheathing again his dagger, he somewhat smoothed his look.
"By St. Paul!" he cried, taking pains, however, not to affect coolness too suddenly, lest the rapidity of the transition should betray its falseness, but carefully letting his anger appear to be slow in subsiding--"by St. Paul! Arthur Plantagenet, thou wilt drive me mad! Wert thou not my brother's son, I would strike thee with my dagger! I came to thee, to give thee liberty, if this taste of imprisonment had taught thee to yield thy empty pretensions to a crown thou canst never win; and thou meetest me with abuse and insult. The consequences be on thine own head, minion! I have dungeons deeper than this, and chains that may weigh somewhat heavy on those frail limbs!"
"Neither dungeons nor chains," replied the gallant boy firmly, "no, nor death itself, shall make me renounce my rights of birth! You judge me cowardly, by the tears I shed but now; but I tell thee, that though I be worn with this close prison, and broken by sorrow, I fear not to meet death, rather than yield what I am bound in honour to maintain. England, Anjou, Guyenne, Touraine, are mine in right of my father; Brittany comes to me from my mother, its heiress; and, even in the grave, my bones shall claim the land, and my tomb proclaim thee an usurper!"